Ice Fishing for Lake Trout in Haliburton

So my buddies Drew, Dan, Scott, Mike and myself decided that Monday January 21st we were going to try ice fishing for lake trout in Haliburton. Wouldn’t you know it? The day turned out to be one of the coldest days we have had this winter but we weren’t going to let that stop us. Drew had the guys all rounded up by 3:30am and picked me up by 4am. So here we are on our way to Minden and it’s a chilli minus 25 degrees outside and I am thinking to myself, this is absolutely crazy, but that’s the diehard fishermen in us.

We finally arrive at our destination around 7am and set up on the ice and we’re fishing by 7:30am. It’s a good thing for ice huts because you would not want to be fishing on this day without one. We set up in 52 feet of water and it didn’t take very long before I hook up with the first lake trout of the day. The fish took a still line with a 1/8 oz. green jig head tipped with a pinhead minnow just off bottom.

Right on, first fish of the day didn’t take long and continued to go smooth for the next hour or so as we hit a few more and lost about six. The bite seemed to slow down so we decided to try a little shallower in the 35 to 45 foot range. That didn’t help us out as we didn’t mark anything for a good hour. I would have liked to move around a lot more but it was just too darn cold.

The time now was about 11:30 and we had planned to leave this lake by 1pm and hit another lake in the Orillia area on the way home, hoping for some pike, walleye, perch and crappies. We decided that for the next hour and a half we would fish the holes that produced for us in the first place until it was time to pack up and get out of there. Well this worked out for us and we caught and kept two more and released five.

Overall this turned out to be a good day as we kept five fish, let eight go, and lost about six. Not too shabby for our first try at ice fishing for lake trout in Haliburton on a lake that we had never tried before. Even though the weather had been relatively cold all week, the previous day had brought in some real cold temps, and I think that this shut the fishing down as we probably could have done a lot better. But for such a cold day, I’m not complaining.

Anyway by 1:30 we are packed up and on our way to Orillia. We arrived in Orillia and were set up and fishing by 3pm. The weather had started to change for the worst by this time, as the wind picked up and the blowing snow had started. We fished until about 6:30 and packed it in. We didn’t do as well as we would have liked on this lake, picking up only six 10 inch perch. Like I had mentioned, the weather changed for the worst and totally shut the fish down.

I’d like to thank my buddies for a great trip, and look forward to the next one.